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This post is shared with the permission of the author RJ Barnett, who is a constituent of Senator John Ford’s. Randy is from Bartlesville Oklahoma. Following this post is a copy of his letter to Senator Ford on topic. Please consider calling or writing your own letter on this important topic of stopping the implementation of Common Core in Oklahoma. Mine is here >>> others have written as well. Please share your letter in comments here!]

Many would ask “What can the righteous do if the foundations are destroyed …” Psalm 9

“To be ignorant of history is to forever be a child.” Cicero

THEQuestion of how Gov Fallin, the NGA and national promoters of Common Core fell under the Collectivist trance of the New World Order will NOT be addressed here. But you can trace the cause to a RINO ( Republican in Name Only ) who penetrated and subverted the Reagan movement. Now, in Common Core, we can see how Obama is running ahead with George Bush’s global education scheme.

“In March of 2009, President Obama called on the nation’s governors and state school chiefs to “develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity… today, 37 states and the District of Columbia have already chosen to adopt the new state-crafted Common Core standards in math and English. Not studying it, not thinking about it, not issuing a white paper—they have actually done it. Over three-fourths of all U.S. public school students now reside in states that have voluntarily adopted higher, common college-ready standards that are internationally benchmarked.. “

Meaning and proper context is essential to break the code in Duncan’s educationist terminology. What is meant by “21 st century”, pray tell?

And be MINDFUL, that the American family and education system was BROKEN Down in order to REBUILD us according to a new ethos. Thorough documentation of this multi-generation breakdown is provided by Ronald Reagan’s #2 Education appointee & POLICY chief sent to reform Jimmy Carter’s NEA pay-off, the federal Dept of Education. Charlotte Iserbyt, a granddaughter of the most elite Ivy League/Yale families was able to discover from covert research in the erly 1980s . (brief testimony here):

Before she could advance the Reagan agenda, Iserbyt was removed by the Bush people in the bureaucracy: am-Bushed.

Dunk’em Duncan goes on to say:

“The second game-changer is that states have banded together in large consortia to develop a new generation of assessments aligned with the states’ Common Core standards. In September, I announced the results of the department’s $350 million Race to the Top assessment completion to design this next generation of assessments.

Two state consortiums, which together cover 44 states and the District of Columbia, won awards. These new assessments will have much in common with the first-rate assessments now used in many high-performing countries outside the U.S. When these new assessments are in use in the 2014-15 school year, millions of U.S. schoolchildren, parents, and teachers will know, for the first time, if students truly are on-track for colleges and careers.

“I admit that President Obama’s 2020 college attainment goal is ambitious. To meet it, roughly 60 percent of young adults will need to have an earned an associate’s or bachelors’ degree by the end of the decade, up from 42 percent today.

We made a great start in expanding college access this year with the passage of health care reform, which also freed up $40 billion for Pell Grant scholarships for low-income undergraduates. That is the biggest increase in student aid in the U.S. since the 1944 GI bill. And the new law also granted $2 billion to community colleges to help them produce millions more graduates.”

CLASSIC FEDERAL CONTROL TECHNIQUES-

“The four assurances got their name from the requirement that each governor in the 50 states had to provide an “assurance” they would pursue reforms in these four areas—in exchange for their share of funds from a Recovery Act program designed to largely stem job loss among teachers and principals.”

Remembering our HISTORY — what Iserbyt found deep in the 1980;’s agenda for global Marxist education

“better education through technology … what we at the federal level can control and manipulate” — DoEd document

“The first assurance was that states would work toward developing academic standards that truly show if a student is ready for college and a career when they graduate from high school. Under the existing system, many states had dummied down academic standards to make students look proficient. While that helps politicians look good, it was bad for children, bad for education, and bad for states’ long-term economic prosperity. Many states were in effect lying to students and parents, telling them that students were ready for careers and college when they were nowhere near ready.

The second assurance governors provided was in the area of data systems. More robust data systems and a new generation of assessments can assist teachers and principals to improve their practices and tailor their instruction in ways that were largely unthinkable in the past.”

Let me close for now … but look for more to follow as we watch the RINO Follies of John Ford and the State Chamber –directed Senate plunging Oklahoma deeper into the Bush-Obama dream … the nightmare of a New World Order.

Please feel free to share this with local parents, friend and associates –

A call to Senator Ford would remind him who he is supposed to be serving.

Senator John Ford is Chairman of the Education Com– 918-914-9300 (m) Office- 405 521-5634
[so far he is refusing to even hear the bill SB1146 in his committee]

[From Randy Barnett to Senator John Ford February 25, 2014]

Dear John –

Thank you for the call yesterday. I appreciate your listening attempt— but it seems you don’t appreciate the stakes.

Just a few concerns to share …

Rather than learning the traditional Classical Liberal Arts, as Dr. Piper made clear at OK W U during the Townhall Meeting, students are being subjected to a Common Core program designed for collectivization and regimentation of a worker state,– the key objective of trans-national corporations and global government, as opposed to critical thinking and self-government.

The stress on younger students and families has proven to be overwhelming— no dispute of this. Common Core does not cultivate a love for learning. You and Sen. Stanislawski heard the testimonies and experience of both teachers and families in Owasso. (and there are many stories not told. )

This revealing item from Obama’s Ed. Sec. Arne Duncan– address to a UN group in Paris:

“In March of 2009, President Obama called on the nation’s governors and state school chiefs to “develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.” Virtually everyone thought the president was dreaming.

But today, 37 states and the District of Columbia have already chosen to adopt the new state-crafted Common Core standards in math and English. Not studying it, not thinking about it, not issuing a white paper—they have actually done it. Over three-fourths of all U.S. public school students now reside in states that have voluntarily adopted higher, common college-ready standards that are internationally benchmarked. That is an absolute game-changer in a system which until now set 50 different goalposts for success.

“The second game-changer is that states have banded together in large consortia to develop a new generation of assessments aligned with the states’ Common Core standards. In September, I announced the results of the department’s $350 million Race to the Top assessment completion to design this next generation of assessments.”

[WHO orchestrated and funded this group of states education bureaucrats, John? ]

“Two state consortiums, which together cover 44 states and the District of Columbia, won awards. These new assessments will have much in common with the first-rate assessments now used in many high-performing countries outside the U.S.”

Meaning and proper context is essential to break the code in Duncan’s educationist terminology. (What is meant by “21st century”, pray tell? )

And we must be MINDFUL, that the American family and education system was BROKEN Down in order to REBUILD us according to a new ethos. Thorough documentation of this multi-generation breakdown is provided by Ronald Reagan’s #2 Education appointee & POLICY chief sent to reform Jimmy Carter’s NEA pay-off, the new, expanded Federal Dept of Education. Charlotte Iserbyt, a granddaughter of a most elite Ivy League/Yale family was able to discover much from covert research in the early 1980s.

“Charlotte Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration.” — career review and findings:

Before she could advance the Reagan mandate for parental control and minimizing the Dept.’s control, Iserbyt was removed by the George Bush Establishment moles in the bureaucracy ( the elite Senior Executive Service) :

CLASSIC FEDERAL CONTROL TECHNIQUES-

Duncan in Paris: “The four assurances got their name from the requirement that each governor in the 50 states had to provide an “assurance” they would pursue reforms in these four areas—in exchange for their share of funds from a Recovery Act program designed to largely stem job loss among teachers and principals.” [ Did Oklahoma ever get all that was promised, Senator Ford? ] What have we learned from history …

“To be ignorant of history is to forever be a child.” — Cicero

Remembering our HISTORY — what Iserbyt discovered back in the 1980’s (an agenda for global Marxist education) went far back in the early 20th century – funded by Carnegie, and especially the Rockefeller Foundations (GEB)

“better education through technology … what we at the federal level can control and manipulate” — DoEd document

JOHN– the Common Core review board you mentioned will be dominated with advocates for the nationalized program — uninformed people who are ill-equipped by training to recognize the hidden agenda and futility of command-oriented conditioning of young minds. ( a la BF Skinner – documented by Iserbyt, a former school board member who studied this close up in the 1970s )

It gives me no cause of hope for this generation of students.

The data security aspects have been addressed by experts in I.T. who say the identity of students cannot be separated from their data– and cannot be protected from federal bureaucrats, as some would tell us. This is another step to the Surveillance State described and warned of by George Orwell in 1984.

The real shame for many members of the GOP is that elected politicians such as yourself are taking us down the Road to Serfdom. Perhaps you’ve heard of that classic economic work on economics and liberty? It’s obvious that you have not read it, John. You are a traitor to the cause that was championed by Ronald Reagan, in my considered opinion. But you can change that, if you still have a mind that is open.

The destruction of American heritage, culture and families is advancing according to plans by globalist institutions that support the UN Agenda 21 and fund the organizations behind Common Core and previous schemes for conditioning students.

UNLESS YOU DELAY AND REVIEW THIS PROGRAM, you are making the recovery of American heritage, culture and freedom a far more difficult challenge for the next generations. Will your name bear a black mark, should you fail to heed the warnings of parents, traditional American authorities, and your own Republican Party, (e.g., the State Committee that issued its statement against Common Core.)?

One last time, we are asking that you HEAR the Bill presented by Senator Eddie Fields, SB—1146.

Allow your fellow Senators, representing the people of Oklahoma, an open deliberative exchange to hear and decide on the best course of action.

PLEASE, John — Stand up for the People , not the lobbyists, special interests and “change agents”.

I know you are getting lots of calls to hear the bills on stopping common core.

I also know that you know that our Republican party platform and the state committee stand for local control of education.

I want you to do more than simply hear the bills in the education committee. I want you to work with our party to educate others about local control of education and why that is best.

It is not local control if you cede that to the federal government and work to implement their standards. It is not local control if you feed DC databases information about our children. It is not local control if you take money in the form of grants and incentives from them to do this to our children. You know this in your heart. You must understand in your gut that you are driving the nail in the coffin of public schools ever being locally controlled again.

I implore you to hear the bills in committee and listen to the people trying to sincerely warn you about this marxist driven path you will be putting us on if you fail to not only hear them, but defeat common core in Oklahoma.

A Mother/Grandmother’s view of Common Core

by Margaret Snow

For several months I have been researching and attending presentations to inform myself about the Common Core standards that are being implemented in our public schools. I have grandchildren in two states both of which have chosen to implement Common Core standards.

My first impression of the Common Core Standards that are being introduced in our state, caused me to wonder, how is greatness achieved by putting all children into a one size fits all information overload and expecting them to transfer all of that information in the form of passing a test equally? I didn’t stop with that first impression though, and continued on to research, listen, and form other conclusions.

After accessing all of the information I have read & heard at this point, I came to conclude that if the program would have been in effect when I was growing up, my life would have been empty and furthermore, if my own children had gone through this type of education, they would not be who they are today. And most of all, I would dare say that my grandchildren are at risk to aspire and become who they should be as productive members of society, but instead, sadly be forced to become programmed robots without the joy of creativity in their lives. Now, I will try to explain my reasoning for this statement.

Photo source: PixelNase via Sarah Coxon online

I have worked over forty years as self employed in a field where daily I have the ability to use my God given talent to create and think outside the box. I am thankful that I have been able to greet the mornings ready to do what I love while excelling and making a good living doing it. I have made good money and yes, at times have lost good money, but have always been able to reach for another idea and thrive again. I have been made it through many of life’s rough challenges by letting my thoughts be driven by creativity and my hands useful with a project. There is no idle time, no boring days, & no time wasted when your mind is constantly seeing another vision and is able to put that vision into place.

I am a designer and if Common Core had been in place when I was a child I would have never thrived. There is no way a child like me would have known the joy of letting their creative juices flow. Days when other little girls were playing dolls, I was imagining a beautiful piece of fabric made into something special and couldn’t stop until I got my hands on it and made it go together into the image I imagined. It was natural and easy to see how the convex curve and the concave curve would fit, to see the angle needed to make something lie flat, or decide what the measurement needed to be for an idea it to work. It wasn’t just the finished product that I could see in my mind, but also what it would take to get it to that point.

I have literally had people come to me with the most unusual requests and ask if I could design something over the years and each challenge has given me a reason to be productive and thrive from day to day. In today’s technical world I am disciplined enough to do what is required to run a business but have a outlet from what would be torture for me. That would be sitting in front of a computer and be programmed into hours of reputation and button pushing. The hours that I spend in my office doing the things that I have to do for my business are my least favorite thing to do and the only thing that keeps me focused on doing them is the fact that the chores will be over and I have an idea on the horizon to pursue. Of course, I am not minimizing the importance of those who love the challenge of this technical world that we live in and have the ability to thrive in it. They are gifted just as those who think like I do and we all play a part in balancing our surroundings without losing sight of what we were created to do. After all, we are not electronically programmed by nature but uniquely created upon our arrival on this earth.

Let me explain something else that I remember as a child and now can see as directing my path as an adult. I am explaining my opinion not because I am a trained professional accessing the mind, but simply from what I see inside my own mind. I can remember liking school and school being rather easy for me. There were some subjects that were easier than others. Reading and History in particular were my favorites because everything I read whether it was literature or history, I would become a character in that place and time with the mental vision in my mind. It all comes to life when you see the landscape, the way characters are dressed, the time and place that is in the vision that you are seeing in your mind. A date or quote on a page is memorable because there is a picture in your mind of that place, time , and even the words on the page it was written on. Things like spelling ,English, math, & even formulas in science were easy because I memorize based on what I saw on the paper and how I related it to what it applied to. I would dare say that many good students over the years have seen things in this same manner. In addition, those things that were planted in my mind at that early age have never left me. I have used them daily in communicating, calculating, and reasoning because they were engrained in a human mind not saved in an infallible data base that I would have to access in order to function. There are many minds much more intelligent than mine, but having learned skills at a time when skill learning was required and learning to retain information when retention was required, has certainly not been a deterrent in functioning as a productive adult, nor do I see it as an unnecessary or outdated skill for future generations.

Now, I would like to shift my thoughts to the focus on two children that are now adults with their own families. Yes, they are my children and like many mothers, I am proud of them but I use them as examples of what I am passionately trying to express because they are where I draw my first hand knowledge for my opinions. First, let me say that in spite of any failures that I may have had as a parent, I thank the good Lord for having his hand on my children. He knew my heart and he answered my prayers with boldness where they are concerned. I had two children who are now adults, my oldest is a son and my youngest, a daughter. They were again, uniquely created and totally different in many ways. As children, they both were achievers but their achievements and interests were very different. They did share something in common, the desire to become the best they could be. I remember telling them many times, “I do not expect more than you are capable of, but I do expect all you are capable of.” I share this not because I think my children were smarter than other children or because I just want a forum to brag, but because I see them as perfect examples of very different individuals that have become equally successful in their own right.

My son is a businessman who today has a net worth much more than I would have ever dreamed for him. He owns a successful company which is actually his second along with other successful ventures and many assets. He is known for his ability to quote numbers, bids, regulations, and just about everything he needs to know off the top of his head. People who do business with him are amazed at his ability to retain information in a manner that is so easily obtained. He started his very own first business when he was 13 years old. I could go into a whole list of his successful endeavors over the years but in short, he is just basically a gifted businessman with an amazing work ethic doing what he loves, therefore; he is extremely successful. He was a good student but not a student who really enjoyed school. He was too busy thinking outside the box, figuring things out on his own, and putting the results into a business plan. Although his ACT test score would have easily gotten him into college, in his mind he viewed school more as necessary while he was truly preparing for a successful life. After graduating from high school he went directly to work taking a few courses but not finishing with a college degree which I think would be a huge surprise to people who know him today. He is very knowledgeable, articulate, and well respected in a very competitive and detail oriented business and an absolute positive contribution to the community in which he lives.

My daughter on the other hand loved school and was a dedicated student always focused on the fact that she wanted to go to college and doing her best to achieve that long term goal. A goal she achieved through hard work acquiring scholarships, working part time all the while maintaining a 4.0 grade average. She was competitive and goal oriented from a very early age and always did well in school because school was enjoyable to her. Even with the ability to do well in all of her subjects, her absolute strength was centered in her creativeness through writing. Fortunately, she had teachers that saw a reason for creative children to be allowed to imagine and create not just programmed into repetition, giving her the opportunity to also think out of the box writing stories, poems, plays, and numerous projects. There hardly seemed to be a day that she wasn’t involved in a project of some kind with our kitchen table covered with her papers & art supplies. None of that creative time spent kept her from adapting and advancing in today’s technical world, it has only added to her ability to use both technology and creativity to excel in her current field. Today, with a masters degree she owns a very successful advertising and marketing agency diversified in everything from coop advertising to media production and is respected for both her business accomplishments and her contribution to the community where she lives.

Of course, some will say I am just a mother boasting about her children. I would be lying to say I am not proud of them, but I tell their stories because they absolutely make my point. They are both equally important as productive members of society and just like their mother, both can lay claim to accomplishments that could never have been achieved if they had been predestined from an early age to think within only the confines of information provided to them and testing based on that information.

I heard a motivational speaker say something several years ago that has always stuck with me. His premise was that a successful person is most always defined by how much money they make, but a truly successful person is one who can figure out how to get up every day able to do what they truly enjoy, while still being able to make a living that satisfies their needs and makes them content.

In conclusion, I think a warning should be sounded against an educational system that feels that children should be programmed with instructional information and predestined for a chosen job upon completion of their education. This is absolutely what Common Core Standards are designed to do. We cannot be productive by absorbing technology alone no more than creativity will thrive without using technology in today’s world, but to do away with the ability of a parent to instill the desire to aspire in their children and to destroy the ability for a child to dream and achieve their own accomplishments is an absolute trend toward societal destruction. When Government becomes so powerful that it determines the destinies of our children it has certainly infringed on our God given rights and when we as parents & grandparents sit back and let it happen, we have stolen the God given talents from our children. Shame on Government & shame on us, we will all reap the repercussions.

Special thanks to Margaret Snow for putting her thoughts on paper and sharing them with her representatives and friends in the Bartlesville area. It is my hope that you will follow her example and put your own thoughts on paper and share them with your representatives in Oklahoma and other states being encouraged to embrace this creativity killing beast in our midst. Thanks for letting me share with my Finding Gems & Sharing Them audience. / Sandra Crosnoe

Recently we had a Town Hall Meeting on Common Core to a packed house at Oklahoma Weslayan University. The next day the Bartlesville Examiner Enterprise had this article giving lots of airtime and space to both Rep. Earl Sears who was present at the meeting and Senator John Ford who was not present at the meeting. If Senator Ford had been there he might have learned something (at least I hope so) to prevent his misguided comments on the issue at hand. I had to wait a few days for my anger to subside to write this article.

You see I have been involved in grassroots politics a long time — most of my life actually. One of the very first battles I was engaged in was helping my parents in the 60’s to fight federal aid to education. I had very smart very conservative parents who knew that local control of education was the way to go and that it must be protected if at all possible for the children! My parents lost that battle. My mom, who was an accountant, was involved with school audits at the time. She said that school spending shifted almost immediately and escalated dramatically without any real improvement in the children’s education. In fact over the last 50 years we have seen the federal overreach continue via the department that never should have been created — the department of education. We have seen spending escalate. We have seen DC bureaucrats thinking up ways to exert power and control over local education. They are working on ways to test and prove that they are channeling your children into the jobs they want done rather than encouraging excellence and creativity for the children to find their own way and prosper. That would be background to where we are today and much has been written by others on the topic.

So here is the article the Bartlesville Examiner wrote on the topic with some of my annotations in progress: